The two categories of people I know who say this are elite-college graduates and parents of kids who crashed out of their standardized tests.
> or to do online school for 3 hours a day, have mom, dad, and grandma lecture on our specialties
We’ve tried this for decades. What are the data?
I legit had aircraft sheet metal snips and numerous exacto knives in my locker and a leatherman on my person most of the time and it wasn't a huge deal? Hell, I needed the leatherman to open the hood of my shitbox car. In contrast today, one of my kids brought a toy knife to school a few years ago (because he thought it was cool, great learning opportunity for a young kid about "the man" I suppose) and you'd have thought they caught Bin Laden or something?
Perhaps I was just lucky, but it feels way different now, though there seems to be a lot less bullying.
The system forces schools to increase enrollment by assigning a tuition price based on attaching a loan to it. It's basically for profit. Then, the loans can't be forgiven in bankruptcy when the outcome of the education platform fails to produce an income that supports repayment.
To get an education that doesn't completely screw you over, you need to be a minority with a scholarship or actually have rich parents and attend for fun. But in either case, your only benefit financially is the hope of connecting with other students whose parents are richer than yours.
Exceptions for subjects with artificial barriers of entry (medicine, law, etc., and each of those has its own set of problems, mainly the price of education).
(Speaking about the United States, but probably a lot of this applies to many places.)
I disagree with the sentiment that the rich are dissuading college enrollment. I'm not rich. I don't hire college grads. They are broke, entitled, and lack work ethic. After 5 in a row, I started giving opportunities to smart kids, from good families, who exhibit an appreciation for hard work and good moral character. Those people learn in a month what takes a college grad 6. They appreciate opportunity, instead of expecting it.
As I should have always known, a good person is far, far more valuable than a piece of paper certifying victimhood.
I agree with the idea of giving opportunities to smart kids from good families who work hard and are ethical. But I also think it's pretty damn hard to get good at certain things outside of a classroom? I don't know, I have mixed emotions.
Still, despite my misgivings with traditional education, I think there remains some good that comes from going to a place where your only job is to learn.